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_ ERMANY and ENGLAND, 
THE -REAL -ISSUE 


BY • HIS • EXCELLENCY • DR. • BERN- 
HARD • DERNBURG* EORMERLY • 
SECRETARY • OE • STATE • EOR • THE 

GERMAN • COLONIES * 

PUBLISHED • UNDER • THE • AUSPICES 
OE • THE • GERMANISTIC • SOCIETY 
OE • CHICAGO * 


Return to 

Div. oi IGbiiography 
Lib. of Congress 
(Not Yot loaned) 


Number Ten 


Copyright, 1914, 

By the Curtis Publishing Company in the 
United States and Great Britain. 


Gift 

The Society 
FEB 3 !$!§, 




& tMnA/u 

L5M 


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FOREWORD 


The Germanistic Society plans to issue a series 
of pamphlets to appear from time to time, dealing 
with the war in Europe and its underlying causes. 
The present article has been reprinted from The 
Saturday Evening Post of November 21st, 1914. 

Former publications 

No. 1 — Germany and the Peace of Europe 
by Prof. Ferdinand Schevill. 

No. 2 — The Causes of the European Conflict 
by Prof. John W. Burgess. 

No. 3 — How Germany was forced into war 
by Raymond E. Swing. 

No. 4 — The Session of the German Reichstag 
by Prof. Alex. R. Hohleeld. 

No. 5 — Germany's fateful hour 

by Prof. Kuno FranckE. 

No. 6 — German Atrocities and International Law 
by Prof. James G. McDonald. 

No. 7 — “Militarism" and “The Emperor," the latter 
by Prof. John W. Burgess. 

No. 8— The Evolution of the German Empire 
by Prof. Geo. L,. Scherger. 

No. 9 — German Resources and the War 
by His Excellency, Dr. Dernberg. 

Copies of these pamphlets are for sale at the 
office of the Society at the following prices: 


Single copies $ 0.05 

10 copies 0.25 

100 copies 1.50 


1000 copies (f. o. b. Chicago) .... 10.00 

Profits, if any, will be turned over to the Society 
of the Red Cross. 


THE GERMANISTIC SOCIETY 

OF CHICAGO 

Louis Guenzel, Recording Secretary 
332 So. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 


Germany and England, the Real Issue 


By His Excellency 
Dr. BERNHARD DERNBURG 


As everybody knows, the trouble that led to the present world 
war started in a little corner in the Southeast of Europe, and it is 
remarkable to see how, in spite of this common knowledge, in the 
eyes of the world the European conflict has resolved itself into a 
question between Germany and England as to supremacy in 
Europe. Of course England claims that she went to war on 
account of the breach of Belgian neutrality and that she must fight 
to destroy the spirit of militarism that has led to such a flagrant 
disregard of solemn treaties, a tendency that is endangering the 
peace of the world and consequently must be crushed entirely. 
While England fosters no ill feeling whatsoever and no antag- 
onism toward the good people of Germany, unfortunately, in order 
to crush militarism, led by the emperor and the military caste, the 
German people will have to be destroyed as a nation and what 
is left reduced to the size of a subordinate power. For this purpose 
England has created in her literary arsenal a special docket called 
German Militarism, with the works of Von Bernhardi, Treitschke, 
and Nietzsche as the main exhibits. 

HOW GERMANY HAS KEPT THE PEACE 

It is interesting to note the number of copies of the books of 
these three men that were sold in America before the beginning 
of the war. I dare say there were not twenty of the works of any 
one of them in the hands of Americans, outside of clubs and public 
libraries. Von Bernhardi is the chief witness for the prosecution. 
He is a retired German general of great learning, independent 
views and strong personality. His book makes interesting read- 
ing. Yet he is not among the German generals in the present war, 
having been retired from the service just because his writings and 
sayings did not meet with the approval of his superiors and be- 
cause his teachings were considered very extravagant. His book 

4 


has excited some comment also in Germany, but it has been printed 
in only two editions, and certainly never more than ten thousand 
copies in all have been sold in our country. The book appeared in 
1911, a little over two and a half years ago, and I fail to see how it 
can have created the feeling of militarism that is said to have 
been predominant in Germany for the last thirty years. I further 
fail to see how a book that is obviously written to warn the German 
people against existing dangers; to rouse in them a warlike spirit; 
to teach them the ethics of war and the rights of the stronger, can 
be used to prove that such a spirit of war was rampant in Ger- 
many. If it already existed there was no need to write such a 
book! 

There are Von Bernhardis in all countries. I refrain from 
citing American examples, because I have made it a rule in this 
country not to fall back on them. The feeling of obligation I have 
as a guest of the United States does not permit me to become per- 
sonal. But what about Lord Charles Beresford who, together 
with Captain Faber, has for years and years been egging on the 
English to increase the British Navy at a great sacrifice to the 
country? What about Lord Roberts’ writings and sayings for 
years back that England must have universal conscription and a 
compulsory service? What about Senator Humbert who has 
vigorously denounced the French ministry for neglecting the de- 
fense of the country? Did they teach anything different from 
Von Bernhardi’s teachings? I cannot see it. 

Then about Treitschke. He was a professor of history and 
the historian of the Prussian Government. His ideas were formed 
from a lifelong study of this history. He hated England sincerely 
and thoroughly for the way in which she had conquered her Em- 
pire by using might versus right; but his conferences were mainly 
attended on account of his refined rhetoric, for he was indeed 
an orator of the first order. But from being an orator to having 
an influence on the German people as a whole is a very far cry, and 
Treitschke’s preachings of twenty years ago have not even formed 
a school. One might just as well say that it can be proven that 
America is a warlike nation, because a celebrated Harvard pro- 
fessor at a later day urged his women audience to go into 
war and help the Allies. If that were presented to the world as a 
proof of the American spirit there would be a very energetic 
protest. 

And now I come to Nietzsche: He was one of the finest of 
poetical philosophers, or perhaps rather a philosophizing poet. His 
teaching of the right of the individual as the basis of all right is 
in direct contradiction to Von Bernhardi’s teaching that the right 

5 


of the collectivity — that is, of the state- — is paramount to the right 
of the citizen as an individual. How, therefore, can it be said that 
Von Bernhardi is a disciple of Nietzsche? 

The expression superman is universally attributed to 
Nietzsche. This is just as incorrect as it is to cite the German 
song Deutschland , Deutschland Ueber Alles as a proof of the 
world-wide aspirations of my people. Superman, in German 
U ebermenschy is a word coined by Goethe and used repeatedly in 
his Faust, and so one might just as well lay the present war to the 
door of Goethe. 

The absurdity of the thing is patent, and those who cite 
Deutschland , Deutschland Ueber Alles in proof of German aspira- 
tions do not know even the first lines of this song so dear to the 
Germans. It is a song of modesty and shows better the tendencies 
of the German nation than anything else could: 

Germany, Germany above everything, above everything in the world . 

May her sons stand united for defense and protection 
From the Maas unto the Memel, 

From the Etsch unto the Belt 

Germany, Germany above everything, above everything in the world. 

Now the Maas is part of the western frontier of my home country 
and the Memel part of the eastern frontier, and so are the Etsch 
in the south and the Belt in the north. Could a patriotic song be 
more modest? It may be compared with the American saying that 
the United States is the finest country in the world. The meaning 
is the same. Everybody praises his country and loves it best. And 
is Rule Britannia without aspiration, without pretensions? 

And just as our national anthem is cited, so is our militarism. 
It has been created as a dire necessity for the defense of our four 
frontiers and has never been used beyond them. If every country 
could stand on as good a record as Germany, there would not be so 
much cant about the reasons for the present war. It has been 
stated that militarism in general is a threat to the peace of the 
world. Yet German militarism has kept the peace for forty-four 
years. While Russia went to war with Turkey and China and, 
after having promoted The Hague Conference, battled with Japan 
and “protected” Persia, conquering territory double the size of the 
United States on the might-is-right principle; while England, the 
defender of the rights of the small states, smashed the Boer repub- 
lics, took Egypt, Cyprus and South Persia; while the French Re- 
public conquered the Sudan, Tunis, Madagascar, Indo-China and 
Morocco; while Italy possessed itself of Tripoli and the islands in 
the Mgean Sea; while Japan fought China, took Formosa, Corea, 

6 


and Southern Manchuria and has now, with the aid of her allies, 
invaded China, a neutral country; there is not one annexation or 
increase of territory to the charge of Germany. She has waged 
no war of any kind and has never acquired a territory in all her exist- 
ence except by treaty and with the consent of the rest of the world. 

THE BATTLEGROUND OF ALL EUROPE 

But why, then, did she keep up such a tremendous army? 
Certainly not for aggressive purposes. She never was aggressive 
toward anybody. She needed this army, because her exposed situa- 
tion in the middle of Europe, without natural boundaries and between 
unsettled neighbors, has made her for ages and centuries the cock- 
pit and the battleground of all Europe. Her soil was drenched 
with blood and her population nearly exterminated in the Thirty 
Years’ War; Louis XIV. in the Palatinate left hardly one stone 
on the other, destroyed old Heidelberg and took Alsace and Lor- 
raine, then a German-speaking dukedom; the devastations of the 
Seven Years’ War, the battles and six years’ occupation of the 
Napoleonic times, all taught Germany bitter lessons. Her soil has 
been the rendezvous of Swedes, Danes, Russians, Croats, Poles, 
Italians, French and Spaniards for centuries past. Impotent and 
not able to ward them off, she has been continually destroyed, 
until the genius of Bismarck welded her twenty-six states to- 
gether into one unit, and Germany made the vow that she would 
never again give anyone such chances. That is why we kept our 
army, and if a people have an army at all, it is a waste not to make 
it strong enough for any emergency. That it is not too strong may 
be judged from the fact that Germany is now attacked by seven 
nations. 

You hear people say that the large standing establishment, 
the enormous cost of it, and the time wasted is a sin against cul- 
ture, advancement, and scientific progress. The Germany of to-day 
proves the contrary. While we have been keeping up a big army — 
which, by the way, is the cheapest of the European armies so far 
as the taxpayer is concerned — we have increased our population, 
we have enormously increased our wealth, we have built up a 
gigantic oversea trade, we have constructed the second largest 
merchant marine in the world. More, we have been able to spend 
as much as $250,000,000 a year to take care of our workmen, giving 
them a compulsory insurance against sickness and invalidism, acci- 
dent, and old age, pensioning widows and providing for orphans. 
Every German employee earning less than 5,000 marks a year can, 
with a degree of security, look forward to a comfortable provision 
for himself and for the people dear to him when his own forces 

7 


fail. 'We pay yearly more for this social work than we ever paid 
for our army. 

And our productive and inventive genius has not suffered. I 
do not say that Germany’s civilization is superior to that of England 
and France ; it certainly is superior to the civilization of any of the 
other warring nations. We have been able to give our people a 
primary and technical education of the highest type, and that in turn 
has led to the perfection of scientific work and to inventions that 
are a comfort to all the world. Germany stands in the first rank 
in applied science, be it in chemistry, or electricity, or in the per- 
fection of medicines. With just pride the Germans provide a great 
many absolute necessities of life to a very large part of the world. 
While the population has increased fifty per cent, the wealth of 
the nation is now three times what it was before and, thanks to our 
democratic government, the repartition of this wealth is such that 
we have a well-to-do middle class and few colossal fortunes; and 
the number of really poor people in Germany is infinitely small in 
comparison with other countries. 

This is the story of German militarism, unaggressive and 
certainly not unproductive, based on actual facts. Those antago- 
nistic to our nation say it has created a warlike spirit, and that such 
a spirit by itself is a danger. This warlike spirit is generally shown 
by people going to war; and yet of all the European peoples Ger- 
many alone did not do that. 

The case of Belgium is frequently cited as proving Germany’s 
reckless warlike spirit. It is said we have broken wantonly most 
solemn treaties and, therefore, we ought to be punished for it. The 
question as to the right — so far as obligations under treaties go — 
has been decided by nearly all nations in the same spirit — namely, 
that no nation can hind itself by a treaty to its own destruction , just 
as no individual can so bind himself by contract; that the national 
interest supersedes the international interest, and that treaties are 
closed on the basis of circumstances existing at the time they are 
made, and that, therefore, they are not binding when those circum- 
stances change. 

TREATIES THAT ARE NOT BINDING 

England, who claims to have gone to war on account of the 
breach of Belgium’s neutrality, has never hesitated to break her 
obligations whenever she considered doing so of paramount inter- 
est. She has done so in this war any number of times. There is 
a treaty of peace and amity between Germany and Portugal which 
is to be broken on England’s bidding. There is the Triple Alliance 
which is to be served at English solicitation. Egypt is a sovereign 

8 


state where the rights of the foreigner are guaranteed by solemn 
pledges, yet the Khedive had to banish the German Minister and 
even the judges of the mixed tribunal at England’s command. 
China is a neutral country and bound to the open-door policy by 
international treaties ; she has been invaded by the Allies in breach 
of these treaties. Morocco has pacts binding England as well as 
Germany and regulating the rights of the foreigners ; yet the German 
diplomatic representative has been chased out of the country. 

When Sir Edward Grey expounded the European situation 
before the English Parliament he cited Gladstone in regard to 
Belgium — Gladstone! who said that the maintenance of the obliga- 
tions of a treaty without regard to changed circumstances was an 
impracticable, stringent proposition to which he could not adhere; 
and when England seized two Turkish dreadnoughts on the Tyne 
on August 8th, she proclaimed the fact with the following words : 
‘Tn accordance with the recognized principle of the right and su- 
preme duty to assure national safety in times of war.” France 
has been doing the same in Morocco, and Japan, when she sent to 
the German Consul in Mukden — a Chinese city in Manchuria — his 
passports, acted on the same principle, leaving aside all her other 
infractions on Chinese treaties and rights. 

This is sad and does not portend well for the permanent peace 
by arrangement of international affairs through treaties; yet it 
seems that it cannot be helped. The United States Supreme Court 
in a judgment rendered in 1889, written by Judge Field and expressing 
the unanimous conviction of the whole court, says the following : “Cir- 
cumstances may arise which would not only justify the Government 
in disregarding their treaty stipulations, but demand in the interest 
of the country that it should do so. There can be no question that 
unexpected events may call for a change of the policy of the coun- 
try.” This judgment was handed down when the Chinese were 
excluded from the United States in violation of a previous treaty 
which had assured them the same rights as United States citizens ; 
and the United States has acted on the quoted decision ever since. 

THE CASE OF BELGIUM 

It is, therefore, universally recognized that the vital interests 
of a country supersede its treaty obligations. But though this is 
the theoretic side of the question, there is a practical one as regards 
Belgium : When the war broke out there was no enforceable treaty 
in existence to which Germany was a party. Originally, in 1839, a 
treaty was concluded providing for such neutrality. In 1866 France 
demanded of Prussia the right to take possession of Belgium, and 

9 


the written French offer was made known by Bismarck in July, 
1870. Then England demanded and obtained separate treaties with 
France and with the North-German Federation to the effect that 
they should respect Belgium’s neutrality, and such treaties were 
signed on the 9th and 26th of August, 1870, respectively. Accord- 
ing to them both countries guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality for the 
duration of the war and for one year thereafter . The war came to 
an end with the Frankfurt Peace in 1871, and the treaty between 
Belgium and the North-German Federation expired in May, 1872. 
Now why these new treaties, if the old one held good? 

The Imperial Chancellor has been continuously misrepresented as 
admitting that in the case of Belgium a treaty obligation was broken. 
What he said was that the neutrality of Belgium could not be respected 
and that we were sincerely sorry that Belgium, a country that in fact 
had nothing to do with the question at issue and might wish to 
stay neutral, had to be overrun. But it should not be forgotten 
that the offer of indemnity to Belgium and the full maintenance 
of her sovereignty had been made not only once but even a second 
time after the fall of Liege, and that it would have been entirely 
possible for Belgium to avoid all the devastation under which she 
is now suffering. 

England takes the position that, in case France had used Bel- 
gium as a stepping stone, England would have gone to war against 
France for breaking the Belgian neutrality. This is a remarkable 
proposition. On July 30th the Belgian charge-d’affaires at St. 
Petersburg wrote to his government — and the authenticity of this 
letter cannot be impeached — that the Russian war party got the 
upper hand upon England’s assurance that she would stand in with 
France. This was written before the Belgian question ever came 
up ; and before Sir Edward Grey expounded in the Parliament the 
Belgian question he insisted that England was obliged to protect 
the French coast against Germany because of the amity and friend- 
ship existing between the two nations. He then read the corre- 
spondence of 1912 between himself and the French Minister of 
War, where the arrangement is alluded to that the French fleet 
should protect the Mediterranean Sea and the English fleet the 
northern coast of France. So in consequence of this Sir Edward 
Grey answered Count Lichnowsky that the maintenance of Bel- 
gium’s neutrality alone would not keep England from going to 
war, but that if France should be attacked England would aid her. 

I wish an intelligent American reader to picture to himself a 
situation where England protects the French coast against Ger- 
many and goes to war against France for breach of the Belgian 
neutrality. 


10 


But Belgium was in fact not neutral any more, and with her 
circumstances had greatly changed. Since 1906 she had been 
in correspondence with England, elaborating plans for a com- 
mon defense, providing for the landing of a hundred thousand 
English at Antwerp. She had been in correspondence with France, 
building fortresses all along the German frontier which form a 
continuous chain with the French fortresses along that same fron- 
tier. She had been changing her military system to a system of 
compulsory conscription, establishing an army of more than three 
hundred thousand men and creating — on English instigation — a spy 
system on her eastern frontier. She had acquired enormous oversea 
possessions of nine hundred thousand square miles, an area three times 
as great as Germany and populated by nine million inhabitants. 
This acquisition, by the way, was also obtained by breach of 
treaty. 

Belgian population at home is bigger by one-half than that 
of Portugal. Though Belgium left her frontiers toward France 
entirely unprotected and open, she was actively preparing to make 
a stand against Germany. This is not the “poor little country’" 
that is being pictured to the Americans. I think the Belgian fight- 
ing, which she has had to do almost alone against a large part 
of the German forces, should fully prove that. 

But she did more. The Imperial Chancellor said that he had 
proofs that the French were to invade Germany by way of Belgium. 
Proof there is. French soldiers and French guns, in spite of all the 
denials made by the French ambassador at Washington, were in 
Liege and Namur before the 30th of July. This proof is only in 
private letters, but it comes from absolutely unimpeachable people. 
Of course it is not to be found in the White Books, such as are held 
up as evidence of the purest water. 

But do Americans believe all the “official news” that the 
Russians are sending continuously from the seat of war as to their 
enormous successes, the routing of the Austrians, the destruction 
of their whole army, the march on Vienna and Berlin, and so forth? 
I do not think they do; but why then place an implicit faith on 
so-called White Books, written by identically the same people? 
Such books are written for the purpose of making out a nation’s 
case, and they are the diplomatic war weapons used in the war of 
diplomatists that always precedes the war at arms. 

There is a great deal of talk of crushing Germany, and the 
necessity for it, because of her military spirit. I confess we are a 
manly people and want to be strong and want to be secure. We 
want to live and to thrive and are ready to pay for our civic liberty 

11 


and national independence with our blood. And we should despise 
a nation that did not feel the same way. 

SAFETY FOR THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

The case of England is different. Though she wants to be free 
and independent, she has always managed to have her fighting 
done for her by others, from the time she trafficked in Hessians, 
and that is why she has not had a standing army such as Lord 
Roberts and his friends have always demanded. Though there is 
a fighting spirit in the English Army, it is mostly Irish, and so are 
the leaders: Lord Roberts, Lord Beresford, Sir John French, Ad- 
miral Jellicoe and Lord Kitchener of Khartum. The way in which 
she cares for the little nations whose interests she has so much at 
heart is to allow her fighting to be done by the Belgians, of whom 
Sir Edward Grey said that he expected them to fight to the last 
man for the independence of the country. And so she called in 
the Canadians who should have much better things to do, and she 
made a treaty with Portugal to help her — the Portuguese, who do 
not know what the conflict is about. She brings over ambitious 
Indian princes and poor ignorant Indian soldiers to fight against 
the white men. She relies on Japan, she gets the Boers to attack 
the German possessions, and she tries to persuade Italy to do some 
fighting for her. Most of these are “poor little states,” who now are 
expected to fight for the sovereignty and independence of Great 
Britain. In this way she has time left to talk at home and to 
force the unemployed into a new army that is going to be created. 
That she too must become militaristic she now finds out to her 
surprise and grief. 

The fact that Canada has taken part in this struggle has 
opened up a new prospective to Americans. It is a willful breach 
of the Monroe Doctrine for an American self-governing dominion 
to go to war, thereby exposing the American Continent to a 
counter-attack from Europe and risking to disarrange the present 
equilibrium. But I think America can set her mind at rest on 
that point. I, at least, would most emphatically say that, no matter 
what happens, the Monroe Doctrine will not be violated by Ger- 
many either in North America or in South America. When she 
is victorious, there will be enough property of her antagonists 
lying about over the four parts of the globe to keep Germany 
from the necessity of looking any farther and causing trouble 
where she seeks friendship and sympathy. 

While England in the Venezuelan case of 1895 most coolly 
challenged the Monroe Doctrine, it was Germany in 1904, in a 
similar case also with Venezuela, who submitted her claim in 

12 


Washington and got the consent of the United States Govern- 
ment to prosecute the collection. Moreover, I am in the position 
to state here that immediately after the outbreak of the war, by 
one of the first mails that reached the United States, the German 
Government sent of its own free initiative a solemn declaration to 
the Department of State that, whatever might happen, she would fully 
respect the Monroe Doctrine. 

THE DANGERS OF NAVYISM 

I wish also to make clear to the American people that Ger- 
many neither wanted nor started this war which had its origin 
in Russia’s pretensions to mix in Austrian affairs, and that got its 
size from the fact that England and France joined the conflict, the 
latter from treaty obligations, the former from self-interest, and 
that we have no ambitions of enlargement in Europe or in America. 
Modern democracies and especially the German one which is di- 
rected by the most liberal ballot law that exists, even more liberal 
than the one in use in the United States, rest, at least in Europe, on 
a national basis. 

We do not believe in incorporating in our Empire any parts 
of nations that are not of our own language and race. The history 
of Europe has shown us the danger of such a thing. The diffi- 
culties between France and Germany are over the French-speaking 
population in Lorraine; the small internal differences in Germany 
came because of some millions of Poles and thirty thousand Danes ; 
the trouble between Austria and Italy is because of a few hundred 
thousand Italian-speaking people under Austrian government. 
England had what nearly amounted to a civil war because of Ire- 
land. The trouble in Russia is on account of the Poles, Finns and 
Baltic Germans ; and Austria, the country of many nations, is not 
very strong just for this very reason. And as to oversea posses- 
sions, as I said before, there are enough to be had without borrow- 
ing trouble ; especially in Africa, where considerable tracts lend them- 
selves to colonization by the white man. 

Even there our ambitions do not go very far, and we are quite 
content with what we have and with our spheres of influence in 
Mesopotamia and some countries, such as Morocco, that a civilized 
nation with great resources and inventive genius might open to 
the world’s culture. All assertions that our ambition goes beyond 
this are untrue and simply invented for the purpose of rousing 
distrust between the United States and a country that has for 
generations been the friend of the Stars and Stripes, and that has 
never gone to war with them as England has done. 

13 


I have read in American papers statements to the effect that proba- 
bly the next thing Germany would do after the close of the present 
war would be to invade the United States or take Brazil. "Why 
not say the same of England? She has always had a navy twice 
the size of that of any other nation; she is now creating a big 
army; she has always been aggressive; she has conquered half 
the world ; she has shown utter disregard of treaties ; she has coal- 
ing stations all along the American coast which form a fighting 
basis from Halifax down to the Falklands and from Chile up to 
British Columbia; she controls the entrance to the Panama Canal; 
she is even now dictating to Uncle Sam her own rights and laws in 
regard to contraband, seizing American petroleum, seizing Ameri- 
can ships flying the Stars and Stripes, harassing American citizens, 
cutting cables, using wireless stations as she pleases, maiming the 
trade of America, locking up the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the 
Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. 

Why not consider navyism in the same light that is applied to 
militarism? I ask, who is bulldozing the rest of the world, in- 
cluding America, at this present moment? England wants to rule 
the seas. There lies her power; thence comes her commerce and 
therefore her riches. Whenever a nation that is but human — as I 
think the English are — poses as being on a higher level than any 
other nation, doing everything for the benefit of the under dog, 
because of altruism and a recognition of the sacredness of her given 
word, disclaiming emphatically any self-interest, while at the same 
time advertising through her writers the loftiness of her intentions, 
I cannot help feeling suspicious, and everybody else should, it seems 
to me, feel the same way. 

Americans have been hearing a great deal about the English 
angel without wings standing with a sword drawn for the protec- 
tion of liberty, freedom, humanity and other just causes, using as 
watchwords the fight against militarism, the principle that might is 
right, the infringement of the Monroe Doctrine, and so on. She 
has sent a host of English authors of a very special type to defend 
her case. I read articles by W. K. Chesterton, Hall Caine, H. G. 
Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and other writers of fiction. They 
consider the American people a sentimental people, preferring 
humane stories to the cold truth, fiction to facts, and unused to 
doing their own thinking. Well, fiction is what these men are 
writing; that is their business, and the gentleman who detailed the 
English case in the issue of The Saturday Evening Post of Octo- 
ber 17th, Mr. Arnold Bennett, is an artist of no common attain- 
ments. 

But I shall make free to dig somewhat deeper into what I see 

14 


to be the reason for the English attitude. England has created a 
large shipping trade and acquired enormous possessions oversea, 
and she felt secure in her supremacy. She was uneasy only on 
account of the United States, which — until Germany loomed up 
on the horizon as a big power — she tried to treat as she was treat- 
ing Germany before the war. But now she feels that her absolute 
sway is in danger. Even in her own domain she does a very large 
share only by foreign help. Most of the big bankers, from Roth- 
schild down, are of German descent; the whole English credit 
would have broken down if the English authorities had not, within 
four hours, forced Baron Schroeder to become a British citizen; 
the diamond and gold business is in the hands of Anglicized Ger- 
mans ; theirs is a large share in the produce business. The English 
cannot do without German clerks. 

A COMMERCIAL QUARREL 

I remember a speech by the chairman of the London Chamber 
of Commerce, Lord Southwark, not longer ago than last June in 
which he said: “You Germans are getting ahead of us because 
you are working 16 per cent longer than we and because you do not 
consider Saturday a holiday. That state of things was not felt much 
so long as it was going on within British confines and for the inter- 
est of Great Britain alone — that is, until about 1880; but then the 
German nation commenced to assert itself. Germans learn all the 
languages whereas the English very seldom do. If an Englishman 
wants a stenographer to write Portuguese letters to Brazil he must 
take a German clerk. German dominion in trade all over the world 
has been established through the fact that the German talks to the 
people in their own language, respects their national feeling, finds 
out their national wants, and delivers to them exactly what they 
wish to get. He never says, “We cannot do this” or “You have 
to take our standard,” but carefully carries out their orders accord- 
ing to the best scientific methods and therefore at the best price. 
The German iron industry has, because of its improved methods, 
obtained a great part of England’s trade. German machinery, 
except in the textile business, is more efficient than English 
machinery. The field of electricity has been entirely abandoned 
by England to America and Germany. Dyestuffs are now even 
shipped by way of America and Canada back to England. German 
proprietary medicines have conquered the world market and the 
German competition is felt everywhere. 

Then, too, there is the enormous increase of German shipping, 
in spite of the fact that practically all the English companies doing 
passenger service are half broke. While the International Mercan- 

15 


tile Marine Company has suspended payment and the big liners 
of the Cunard Line can live only by subsidies, Germany has been 
building up a most magnificent merchant marine with ships that 
exceed in comfort and size anything launched from England’s ship- 
yards. Even in the tramp-steamer business, the backbone of Eng- 
lish sipping, the Germans have made big inroads. So while the 
trade of Great Britain and Ireland since 1870 has risen from two 
billion dollars to five and a half billions, that of Germany has 
risen from one billion to five billions — in other words, while 
Germany’s trade is now five 'times what it was in 1870, English 
trade is only two and a half times its former amount. For a com- 
mercial nation such as England this condition is very serious. It 
goes to the very core of the nation’s existence. Therefore, Great 
Britain faced the alternative of getting better habits of work, im- 
proved machinery, better education, better knowledge of foreign 
languages — that is, being more industrious, less luxurious, and 
more painstaking — or of fighting. But England was not accus- 
tomed to do her own fighting, save with her fleet. The other 
fellows, whose welfare she has so much at heart, could fight for 
her, so it was not very difficult for her to make her choice. 

This is the real explanation of the present war. The correct- 
ness of this view is proved by the constant invitations sent out 
from England to America to help her get away with the German 
trade, an idea that is justly repulsive to the American mind. So it 
was not Germany’s militarism that England feared, but German 
trade and commerce which she could not destroy because of the 
military and naval forces behind them. 

Germany is now attacked by seven nations. She is fighting 
morally for her freedom and for her existence. She has no special 
grudge against anybody. She is modest in her aspirations and 
merely wants to maintain her place under the sun. She wants 
equal opportunity, open-door politics, and open commerce through- 
out the world. Nor is she either Hunnic or barbarian, as Ameri- 
cans will have learned from the twenty-five million Germans or 
German-American people who live in their midst. She is out for 
conquest on a peaceful line, the line where the higher culture wins, 
where the more industrious and laborious are sure to prevail. This 
is to the interest of all the world. Germany has to her record forty- 
four years of peace, and she has never coveted her neighbors’ pos- 
sessions. So, as far as the moral issue goes, she has much the best 
showing to make of all the nations now at war, and it is within 
eternal justice that she should and will prevail. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


